ANOTHER SLEEPER BUS--TO COIMBATORE, FOLLOWED BY A TRIP TO THE ISHA ASHRAM...FEB. 17TH

I say "another" because, not mentioned in the previous blog, I took my first one from Hampi to Bangalore. It is surely a form of torture for any typical westerner! Noisy, wildly swaying, hot then cold... people getting on and off, lights glaring through the windows... calling it a "sleeper" bus is the misnomer of the century!! I may have slept a couple hours in the early part of morning, only from sheer exhaustion. However, because flying is expensive and the trains are next to impossible to book (They almost ALWAYS have huge waiting lists! SO crazy!!), one sometimes has no other choice when traveling a substantial distance. 

So it was that, with great trepidation, I boarded my second sleeper bus, this time to Coimbatore (in the state of Karnataka), for the purpose of rejoining my Russian tour group and attending the famed Mahashivaratri at the Isha Center/ashram there (home of the well-known Sadguru). 

I arrived--not surprisingly--sleep-deprived and moody. Still, I was happy to see the others again.

We then crammed ourselves into a rickshaw-- 8 of us, including the driver-- and took a most uncomfortable, 30 km. drive out to the ashram... a preview of what was to come the next day--the actual day of Mahashivaratri.  

The Isha ashram was immense, containing living quarters, an assortment of temples, places to bathe, grounds to walk, food stalls, etc. etc. Most impressive of all, however, was the giant Shiva--aka "Adiyogi", or original yogi-- which apparently took years to complete (and most likely cost a small fortune to boot!) 

Had fun taking the photos and wandering.... 



The lotuses you see were made from some sort of plastic material... quite amazing... 


The ashram grounds were large and impressive... filled with coconut palms and other foliage. 


I liked this sculpture of the giant cobra... 


Amazing, from any angle...

The whole lot of us, along with a couple Isha staff members in green. 





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